


An Heir for the King

by thequeenmeera



Series: If Not For You [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, I REGRET NOTHING, Miscarriage, Stillbirth, and i don't have the time, bran stark is the king in the north, bran/meera having kids au, didn't think you wanted me to draw this out over chapters, hi i'm back to to hurt you, infant mortality, kitn bran, more of a summary than an actual fic, qitn meera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 11:37:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16304462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenmeera/pseuds/thequeenmeera
Summary: Bran and Meera need to produce heirs for the throne, sometimes things take a while.





	An Heir for the King

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like a summary than a fic, I didn't think y'all would want me to draw this out over several chapters.

In the weeks after her wedding Meera spent a great deal of time in prayer. She refused to tell her husband what it was she prayed for – though he had his suspicions - and continued spending at least an hour every day kneeling before the heart tree. Her moon’s blood did not come that month nor in the month after. In Bran’s view his wife seemed to glow in those early days of marriage; they were both blinded by happiness. They spent their days doing their duties as king and queen and their nights engaged in their other, more pleasurable duty. It was in the third month of their marriage, winter was setting in for true and Bran woke to find his bed cold. His sisters found the queen hours later huddled on the floor of the privy, soaked in her moon’s blood.  


It happened again when the snows were grey and the sky clear, fears that the long winters of the past were returning had been hushed, and the queen again missed her moon’s blood. It came not long after though, before the first flowers had even poked their heads above the melting snows. Meera returned to the godswood and prayed as she never had before. _Please you old gods_ she whispered. A breath of steam from the hot pools brushed her cheek as she was making her way back towards the castle, she hoped it was an answer.  


When the snows had finally gone away and the meadows were carpeted with thick green grass a crowned crannog woman missed her moon’s blood again. The life in her belly grew. They expected the babe to be born in the winter. A red-haired lady set to work with her needle, making a wardrobe fit for a little prince or princess, sometimes ignoring her own maiden’s cloak in favor of making tiny gray shoes. The winter snows had not yet come, it rained instead that autumn evening. The stairs were wet from serving men and women busily moving about the castle in and out of the keep. Meera slipped on a stair and fell. It took weeks for the bruises to disappear, two months for her wrist to be released from the cast, and four days before the tiny, purple infant was delivered. The silence after she was born would never fully leave her mother’s mind.  


It was the deep of winter when Meera conceived again. She committed herself to rest. Meera no longer walked about the castle if she could help it; when she did leave her chambers she moved slowly. Someone had to walk beside her on the stairs, just in case. The gods rewarded her with a perfect little babe. His hair was russet, his eyes looked like a deep river on a cloudless day. His wails could be heard in the Winter’s Town, or so Rickon told her. _Torrhen_ Bran named him, hoping to redeem that name in the eyes of the Northern Lords who were three hundred years dead. This babe was strong, he was vigorous. The King ’s Counsel soon grew used to their prince’s presence in the council chamber even though their prince had not passed one name day. The squealing, chubby little boy would bounce in his father’s lap or his aunt’s, or chew the edge of the table, oblivious to the everyday workings of the kingdom he would one-day rule.  


The king’s oldest sister was wed the summer her nephew was born. On her wedding day Sansa had outshone all the lovely maidens of the songs. Her husband had once been handsome too; Sansa insisted he still was. Lord Edric had lost half a leg and two fingers, what remained of his left leg was mottled with burns and there was a long scar along one side of his face all from the war with the Others. He was kind to Sansa and honorable and she loved him. The king in the north watched his sister ride away towards Dorne from the hill where they’d parted. It was the first time since his exile that he’d wished for wings. He’d never been south of Winterfell before. On the ride back he’d joked that Arya was next, she moved her horse closer to his so she could punch him.  


The next summer a fever swept through the North. The king acted swiftly to protect his people from it. They were to keep away from populated areas, they were not to share the same space or food or drink as the sick. The dead would burn rather than risk the disease getting in the earth or the water. He did not act fast enough. Little Torrhen who had just been starting to say “ma, ma” and had little bruises on his knees from falling thirty times a day while trying to run only lasted a week. It took two guards, the blacksmith, and the maester to hold the queen down and remove her son’s body from her arms. She’d held him for a full day after he died, weeping, screaming, pleading with the gods to give her boy back. The boy had begun to smell the way corpses did. No amount of soothing words could convince Meera to let her little boy go. Meera could never forget her little boy’s warmth, his little baby gurgle, and how it felt to have an infant squirming in her arms. She vowed that no matter how many babes she might have in the future they would never be able to replace the strangeness or the overwhelming feeling of love that rose in her the first time Torrhen was placed in her arms.  


Meera’s grief over Torrhen did not subside quickly. Bran could not allow himself to mourn as deeply as she did, he told her. After a month of her weeping she was sent away to stay her father “Until you can see the sunlight without weeping” the king said. His sister went with her. Arya would bring her good-sister water or wrap a blanket over her shoulders while she wept. When autumn was settling on the swamps she convinced Meera to teach her to navigate the swamps in the little skin boats the crannogmen used. They hunted frogs and lizard-lions and Arya learned to love the taste of turtle soup. Meera said that there was a hole in her heart that would never be filled again, and it never would, not really. But by mid-winter her tears were more likely to be for missing her husband, or anger at him for sending her away than for her little boy. When the snows had cleared enough for travel Meera took her leave from her father’s house and rode back to Winterfell with haste. The first thing she did upon arriving was to scold her husband for “insensitivity and his fear of tears.”  


While the queen was gone some men in the North had gotten the notion that his younger brother ought to be on the throne. “The king is a cripple and a madman, he has no heirs of his own. The younger brother will succeed him anyway.” Four hundred men had marched on Winterfell before the king could call any banners. Rickon led men into battle for the first time at fourteen and returned with an arrow wound, a gash on his arm, and he was never able to regain the innocence he’d once been able to maintain.  


In private conference Arya told her younger brother that those men had been lucky they hadn’t threatened the king while she was there. “That’s why they’ve never tried before,” he responded, only half in jest.  


Meera’s belly began to swell again by the time the summer crops were poking through the soil. That summer there were many times her good-sister found her in the nursery smelling Torrhen’s clothes, still mourning quietly for her precious little boy. She woke Bran one night with a cry the first time she felt the new baby’s fluttering kicks in her womb.  


When the lords bannermen gathered for the harvest feast they all bore gifts for the new child. Lord Umber brought a fine weirwood bow, Lord and Lady Thenn presented the king and queen with a basket of carved wooden toys and a bronze-banded hunting horn. “The child will grow into a great hunter” Lord Hornwood said when he laid a fine boar-spear on the table with a matching knife. Lady Dustin almost begrudgingly set a basket of new baby clothes made of linen and silk, leather and fur before her king, to spare them from having to use their lost boy’s clothes. The lords Ryswell gave them especially fine saddles and bridles with five yearlings. Lord Manderly gave them strings of pearls. Lady Mormont gave them amber beads and a direwolf carved from the same material; Bear Isle had prospered since men had found veins of amber in the mountains. There were many and more gifts. The queen’s favorite was a doll from her father. He’d made it himself with wood and leather and grass; it looked just like one she’d played with as a child. He seemed to be the only one of their lords to know the babe would be a girl.  


The labor lasted for three days in the depths of winter. Meera bled so much the Maester hadn’t been able to look his king in the eye, Rickon cried, and Arya didn’t leave her good-sister’s side. After the birth Meera was bedridden for months. Bran wasn’t allowed to share the bed with her for the first month. Meera’s comfort during those long, lonely weeks was her baby. She was not as loud as Torrhen had been but somehow that brought Meera comfort. _Perhaps her flame will not gutter out so quickly_ Meera thought.  


A few hours after the babe was born Meera was lying in bed, propped up on pillows, holding the babe close after nursing. Bran had pulled his chair as close to the bed as he could. “What should we call her?” he asked, his voice was soft.  


Meera sighed and shifted the baby’s weight to rest more on her lap than in her tired arms. “I don’t know Bran. She’s your heir.”  


“You’re her mother, I thought you might like a say.”  


She looked at him, his brow was tight with worry. “If you keep frowning like that your face might freeze that way,” he smiled faintly at that, Meera stroked the baby’s feathery dark hair with a finger, “do you have any ideas?”  


He frowned again, “What do you think about naming her Arry?”  


Meera laughed at that “As much as I love your sister, I don’t think that would work for a princess.”  


Bran laughed too, “What about Lyra, do you like it?”  


The baby gave a little cry and Meera pulled her back up to her chest, “I’m not sure if that means she likes it or she hates it. But I think it’s nice.”  


“Lyra then.”  


Lyra kicked and whined in her mother's arms, Meera grinned "Oh she definitely likes it."  


**Author's Note:**

> So love it? Hate it? Want to hunt me down and punch me in the face? Please don't do that. But please do leave a comment!  
> Also feel free to go follow me on tumblr at [theladymeera](http://theladymeera.tumblr.com).


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